Chinese New Year 2025

Manyu does not get overly excited about Christmas, and I’m lukewarm to Chinese New Year. As much as we appreciate each other’s cultures, our love of particular holidays remains tied to our individual childhoods. Clare is both her mother’s daughter and her dad’s little...

On the Trail, Off the Trail

The main loop of northern California’s Muir Woods is a wide and clearly marked trail. The most heavily trafficked sections have split rail fences on either side. The parts that are not fenced have signs reminding people to stay on the trail. Near the entrance is an...

Comprehension

When I was seventeen years old, my girlfriend dragged me to the a movie version of Othello. Only a week earlier I’d made her go to Billy Jack, so it might have been her way of getting back at me. The movie (Othello, not Billy Jack) was two and half hours long, and I...

A Wisconsin Top Ten

Last week I was putting together an early draft of a new essay, and I wrote, “In spite of my blind spot when it comes to Clare, I do not think that my daughter is the best thing to ever come out of Wisconsin.” The sentence was to be the lede for a description of the...

2025

I vaguely remember when my second grade teacher told our class that we would live into the 21st Century. That was in 1961, and my classmates and I could not project that far into the future. At age seven, the 21st Century was six more lifetimes away.* Last week I...
Steven Simpson